What was once a 37-foot boat navigating the open waters is now nothing more than a pile of rotted wood, fiberglass and wiring.

"Partner Ship" was the first of 16 boats removed during Lee County Natural Resources' most recent effort to clean up waterways.

The boat, half-caked in barnacles and vegetation from what looked like years of neglect, made its final ride Wednesday morning at San Carlos Maritime Park on Fort Myers Beach, towed by a contractor.

The boat removal program began in 1990s, its goal to make waterways safer and the environment cleaner by removing abandoned vessels, said Justin McBride, marine services project manager for Lee County Natural Resources.

It goes like this: someone alerts the authorities there's a boat that looks abandoned. McBride will place a sticker on the boat warning the owner to take care of it. If they don't within 30 days, it is declared abandoned and slated to be removed, McBride said.

Buy Photo

(Photo: Amanda Inscore/The News-Press)

The county finds a contractor to remove the boats from the water, which are then destroyed and hauled away.

"Eighty to 85 percent of the time we cannot locate an owner," McBride said of challenges in tracking down boaters.

As "Partner Ship" was being slowly towed to the site of its destruction, McBride pointed to a boat he had tagged with a neon green sticker just days before to be investigated as possibly abandoned.

This latest boat being so close to the main channel concerned McBride, he said. "It could be someone working on their boat on just the weekend or it could be the start of a dump," he said.

The county spends about $50,000 annually in grant money removin the boats, McBride said. This latest contract will remove 16 boats and take about a month. In the past 10 years, the county has removed 637 abandoned vessels, spending $1.5 million .

Air bladders were placed under "Partner Ship" to keep it afloat, and a line tethered it to the contractor. It was slowly towed for about an hour, onlookers at nearby docks bidding it a final farewell.

Once on a dry boat ramp and cleaned out for the last time, "Partner Ship" was torn apart by an excavator, its pieces hauled to the dump.

"It's disheartening," McBride said of the destruction. "This was somebody's dream at one point. But when it becomes a hazard to the environment, there's nothing else we can do."